It's great to find a forum of people seeking to claim their life back from the so easily-entangling web of PMO. My own personal story: I was introduced to pornography before I was 10 by a friend who wanted to stay up late and skip through the TV channels. After that encounter, we were found out by both of our parents. Since then I hadn't looked at pornography for perhaps 5 years. In secondary school there were always videos going around on people's phones of pornography - from real-life scenes of friends and their "girlfriends" to beastiality. However I had never found these videos leading me to masturbate, it was pretty much banter and laughs at the time. One day when I was 13, a guy in my class said to me "hey do you watch porn?", looking bemused I was like "uhh...no?" He then explained why you should try it and it led me to be inquisitive and discover why. Remember this is at the start of puberty so all sorts of hormones are flying around the place. I remembered trying masturbation for the first time and the immense rush that came to me. However, once I'd ejaculated, I felt an equally immense rush of "feeling dirty." I wasn't alone in this. As a few of my friends discussed mastubarion in Maths class one day (as you do), a couple of us agreed a sense of feeling dirty after you've done the deed. Something surely couldn't be right? If it's good, surely there should be no guilt afterwards? Anyway, fast forward 8/9 years and pornography has been a relentless battle. The thing is I didn't know I was even addicted. There have been so many occasions where I'd tell myself (and God) that I'd stop, and yet I'd find myself bored, idle or unhappy with life and would turn to the pacifier that would make me feel good for a moment, and guilty for much longer. Looking back over the last 9 years, and I see that pornography addiction has taken the joy from particular areas of my life. I would find myself unable to look people in the eye, my confidence quietly drew away from me and I would feel unable to achieve anything. Now don't get me wrong, I know some guys who used to engage in PMO 4/5 times a day - I was more of the 3 times a week guy. It's true that one does begin to find the same type of pornography boring after a while. Because of this I began to explore both herero and homosexual pornography. By this time I knew something wasn't right. Just to be clear, I'm not homosexual, but battling with whether my pornoraphy preferences reflected who I was, was very confusing. I felt so bad after watching porn, but yet the pull was so strong. It was my own little secret, no one had to know. I began taking my faith seriously at the age of 18 when I went to university, but still the dreaded thought that the desire for PMO would quickly show up held me back. I was unable to fully be confident about who I was and who my Creator made me to be. I would stand, pray and sing in church but behind closed doors I was struggling with PMO. No matter what faith you are (or aren't), PMO is the silent cancer of a person's life - it steals confidence, kills joy and weighs guilt upon you. It stopped me from actively pursuing my life goals, because my mind was uninterested in much unless I got my fix of dopamine. It made me feel lazy, unintentional about my goals and made me feel indifferent about life. I wasn't living life abundantly. I'd even forgotten what life was like without it. At 22, I realise that the bond of PMO is a strong one, and it takes faith and intentional action to believe you can abstain, and be free. I realise how much I didn't do when I was younger because my excitement came from "me time" in my room, and less from the abundant living that Life offers. I refuse to let PMO be an addiction that steals more of my life (it may sound dramatic, but hearing other success stories reassures me that other guys feel this way - so do you most probably, or else you wouldn't be here). It won't be easy, but I have hope that Freedom is here. So good to have a community of supporters in the walk to NoFap! Watch this space.
What you are saying makes just so much sense! I am very glad, for your sake, that you have identified with this at such a (relatively) young age. I can identify with your story in multiple ways. The coming across porn at a really young age; the casual attitude about its place in society; and most significantly, not realizing we had been addicted to this thing all along! But wow the way you write indicates to me that you are a very smart and capable human being and should, could, can and will determine to make very positive changes in your life by embarking on this journey! So good luck, and please look into keeping a log about how you get on; I would love to hear how it goes!
Thank you so much Cams, I'm overwhelmed by your encouragement. I wasn't going to originally keep a log, but I will do thanks to your advice. Let's beat this thing together bro.
Mackap: What a great story, thank you! I'm glad you're here. So many of us have had similar experiences. I too can think of so many lost hours and missed opportunities. That makes this a good fight: to reclaim those opportunities going forward. I hope we can help each other. Please keep coming back.
Septimus - thank you for the encouragement. I'm glad you're here also. What a relief to find like-minded people seeking a new life from P. I would never have thought I'd find accountability like this. Awesome!!
